Machzor Le’nusach Barcelona Minhag Catalonia [Festival prayers for the New Year and Day of Atonement]. According to the Custom of Barcelona and Catalonia]

(LITURGY)

Moses ben Solomon Soncino

Salonika

1526

Printed in square Hebrew Spanish type. Unpaginated

Vinograd, Salonika 37; Mehlman 339; Atikoth Yehudah pp.26-7; not in Adams.

RARE AND MOST Important Prayer-Book According to the Custom of Catalonia. Spain, the home of Hebrew poetry, produced so many composers of Piyutim that almost every Spanish city had its own ritual. Following the Spanish Exile however, a uniform ritual was adopted by all (Spanish) Sephardim with the exception of the Catalonian and Aragonian congregations of Salonika, who preserved their unique liturgical rituals for centuries. See S.R. Reif, Judaism and Hebrew Prayer (1993) pp.201-2. Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. no.2446 never saw a copy of this Catalonian liturgy and confused the contents with an Aschkenazi prayer-book. Similarly, Aron Freimann in his Bibliography of the Soncino Press in Salonika and Constantinople, 1526-47 (in: ZfHB, vol. IX p. 22 no. 1) presents an erroneous collation, not having seen a complete copy. For a detailed collation see,Ohel Dawid. Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew And Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library (1932), Vol. II, pp. 841-4 (no. 822) For another copy sold at auction see Kestenbaum & Company, IMPORTANT HEBREW PRINTED BOOKS FROM THE LIBRARY OF THE LATE SALMAN SCHOCKEN, 2nd June, 2003 Lot 25